Cambodia – Monorom Gym, Battambang

Like the look of this gym? If you want to stay nearby then you can check out the links to hotels within walking distance at the end of this article.

Review: Having arrived in Battambang and fired up the SEO friendly google searches for “Gym in Battambang,” I managed to find Monorom Gym, which wasn’t too far from my hotel and so began my introduction into a whole new style of gym.

Before I get into that however, Monorom Gym shouldn’t be confused with Monurum Fitness Centre, which is just around the corner and will feature in the next post. I will come back and put a link in here to that gym if I remember once that post is up. Until then, you will just have to wait, full of anticipation. Or apathy. Ok. Apathy it is. To read about Monurum Fitness Centre, click here.

So, what I mean when I say that Monorom Gym represents a new kind of gym, is that this gym seems to have been designed following a meeting which went something like this:

*Gym owner 1 – We have this massive warehouse. We should make a gym.

*Gym owner 2 – That’s a great idea. What equipment should we get?

*Gym owner 1 – We should think about what kind of gym we want to open and tailor the equipment to our users needs.

* Gym owner 2 – Or….. instead of doing that, why don’t we just buy as much equipment as we can, without rhyme or reason, and fill the warehouse until you can hardly move.* Gym owner 1 – Thats why I fell in love you Dave, you were always the smart one.

You get the idea. There is so much equipment in this gym that I have made the best list that I could, but there is no way that I could remember everything they had. The gym is basically full of weight machines, free machines and more benches and smith machines than I had ever seen in any gym. However, this phenomenon is equally matched by the lack of plates. In this whole aircraft-hanger sized gym, with more benches than anywhere I have ever trained before, I could only find two 20kg plates, and two 15kg plates. There were however about 8 x 10kg plates and more than 253 million 5kg plates. This made benching a very weird experience.

As far as I can remember, this gym has:

Dumbbells up to 30kg

Six flat barbell benches

Three decline barbell benches

Two incline barbell benches

Four smith machines

Many, many, many adjustable benches

Lat pulldowns

Dips bar

Chest press

Pec Dec

Leg press

Leg extensions

Low row machine

Bench over row bars

Fixed weight bars

Shoulder press machine

Wide grip pull down machine

Preacher curl bench

Those plates you stand on and turn to the right and left

A day pass to this gym was about $1. There are no towels, so you need to bring one as it does get hot but you can train topless here.

Alongside the water sold at the front counter, the gym also has a shop attached which sells everything from yoga mats to gym gloves to treadmills. I also managed to get a pretty good sized plastic tub of weight gainer for 50,000 Cambodian riel which is about £10. This has given me about 12 servings. so far and I have a little left. They also sold protein by the tub and even ZMA. This is likely to be a good place to stock up on supplies as none of the shops I have seen out here have sold protein drinks or powder.

Who is this gym for? I trained here twice and on both occasions, it was mainly Cambodian guys who were training here. There doesn’t seem to be much cardio equipment, so this place only really seems to be for lifters. As with many of the other places I have trained in Cambodia, most of the guys were training shirtless, so if that is an issue then you might want to avoid this place.

If you are female and in Battambang, I would recommend training in Monorom Fitness Centre over this gym. I only say this because Monorom Fitness Centre seemed to be much more popular with the local female population and it was better equipped for other types of training.

Tips: I didn’t know about the shop, which isn’t very well signposted when you walk in. It is behind the door opposite the little desk where you pay. It is behind the door to the right-hand side as you go in. The lady at the front desk doesn’t seem to speak much English, but her husband usually pulls one of the locals to come translate so that usually helps.